Bamberg - full of faith and controversy

View on the Michelsberg Abbey and Little Venice of Bamberg

Settled on a 7 hills

City of Bamberg was built on seven hills (as Rome) and on each of them stands a tower (of the church or castle). Thanks to the hilly landform they can be seen on different levels into perspective, which leads to magnificent views. 

The model of the old town of Bamberg next to the tourist information

Follow me to see the most important parts of the city... 

A Little Venice

Venice is one of the most recognizable cities in the World, that why many other towns are compared to it. Generally, the town needs some water very close to the buildings to be called "local Venice" (e.g. Amsterdam, Schwabisch Hall) the same thing happens in Bamberg, see why:

There are many old houses located on the bank of the river Regnitz, which are even equipped with small gang-boards to moor the boats

Furthermore, there are several buildings placed in the middle of the river on small islands

View on the Little Venice from town hall's upper bridge  

Beautiful town hall of Bamberg

The Bamberg's town hall is one of the most beautiful in the World. It was built on the small island on the river Regnitz. It connects (by two bridges: upper and lower) two banks of the river, so it used to play significant logistic role in the past also. Its walls are fully painted, which creates even better impression.

Its locations is very interesting and beautiful, but on the other hand it is definitely hard to built the building on the middle of the river as well as the maintenance is very costly, so why they did it?

The town was under significant impact of the monasteries and bishop, who has his residence in the town, on the west side of Regnitz. On the opposite bank of the river there was a part of the town under the power of the town's council and mayor. They couldn't reach an agreement on which side a town hall (the most important building of the city) should be built. In order to end the argument it was built in a middle of the river to give both sides the same rights and access (through the bridge) to the town hall.

On the top of the East wall of the town hall you can find small sculpture of the devil, whose leg "goes out" of the building on the bottom of the wall.

East side of the Bamberg's town hall

Model of Bamberg's town hall from LEGO in one of the Bamberg's shopwindows

Full of faith and controversy

In Bamberg you will find plenty of different churches and most of them has important historical meaning. They are often situated on the hills, thus they are visible from far away. The most important of them is the Dom - cathedral of Bamberg. You can visit it for free. It includes works of art from many different epochs.

The altar of the Dom

The cross located behind the altar (below on the left), the grave of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II (973 - 1024) (below on the right), who established the diocese in Bamberg and founded the first cathedral in 1007. The gravestone is dated on 1499 - 1513. 

Triptych in a side nave of Bamberg's Dom made by Wit Stwosz in 1520-1523

On one of the column of the Dom, there is located an equestrian statue - The Bamberg Horseman (below). The statue is dated between 1225 - 1237, when the new cathedral building was finished. Therefore, it is considered as the first statue showing an animal in medieval ages, since classical antiquity. The person on the horse is not defined, probable it may show the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II.

The second most recognizable church in Bamberg is Michelsberg Abbey - the Benedictine monastery founded in 1015. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed to see it inside. The monastery is situated on the hill and it can be seen almost from every part of Bamberg.

Main entrance to the monastery

View on the monastery from its gardens behind 

Other churches:

All of this looks very pretty right now and gives people very nice souvenir of medieval ages. There is always 'but', so it has to be in this story as well.

The catholic church in Germany by the end of XVIth century became very orthodox one, even more than catholic churches in other European countries.

It was a time when people already started understanding the World and becoming smarter, all of this was not going along with the church's ideology, whose mentality was still from medieval ages. Everyone, who was saying things opposite to those the church was believing, he was accused for witchcraft. The Bamberg's bishops were very famous from hunting for witches in XVII century. They even built a special prison for them called Drudenhaus (which existed between 1627 - 1632) where they imprisoned and tortured people. Following treatments were applied to the prisoners: skin tearing, cutting-off fingers, putting into boiling water, flogging, cutting-off limbs, pulling-out finger nails, closing into a coffin and after all this the prisoners were burned down. 

In these times there were more than 1000 documented witch trials in Bamberg (most of them happened between 1626 - 1632). No one could feel safe, everyone could have been accused without any solid proof. Among the victims of Bamberg witch trials were: mayor of Bamberg and other member of the council of Bamberg with his wife.

Famous breweries

The churches and monasteries did not only bring pain to the city. In them the first biers were brewed. Now Bamberg has the highest number of breweries located in one town among all cities over the World, there are 9 different breweries. The most famous one is Schenkerla, which serves smoked, black bier.

Moreover, we also very liked the bier served in Spezial and Ambrausianum, but unfortunately, we still didn't tried them all. As far as we know if you visit all of them and dring a bier in each of them you can obrain a bier certificate, which is still on our to do list.

Before we leave the old town, we want to introduce the map:

...and some useful parking information. As in most of the cities parking a car in the town's center is not free. But if you want to visit Bamberg during the weekend there are many possibilities to park quite close to main attractions of the city for free. On the map we marked the parking, where we always find a spot and it is free of charge on Saturdays after 2 p.m. and on Sundays (all day long).

Time to leave the old town, there is one more thing to see in Bamberg:

Altenburg ob Bamberg

Altenburg is a small castle located on the highest of Bamberg's hills. It was initially built in 1109, but its years of glory falls on 1251 - 1553, when it used to be a bishop residence. Later the castle was many times destroyed and used mostly as a prison.

The courtyard of Altenburg

The greatest attraction of the castle is a very tall tower, from which you can see a beautiful panorama of Bamberg and its vicinity. The castle is available free of charge, the entrance to the tower cost 1 euro. In the courtyard you will find also a restaurant.

Staircase of Altenburg's tower: 163 steps

There are a lot of stairs, which can be tiring but the view form the top is magnificent, therefore if you already reached Altenburg you have to climb to the top of its tower.

View from Altenburg's tower on Bamberg

One last thing, there are bears in the castle as well, be careful!

That was a very long post, but we hope you enjoyed.

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